The First of a New Generation (and you can keep it)...

Rating: 2/10 (7 June 2005)

When this film was first released in 2002, it was considered by many to be the first wave of a new generation of smart, original horror movies that broke the conventions of an admittedly tired genre. Considering the mountains of praise heaped upon this film it must have worked for some. At it's release it was touted as the future of "zombie" movies (though the film doesn't feature a single zombie) and another triumph for director Danny Boyle (who's only talent seems to be for tapping into the zeitgeist-de-jour of the time and churning out dull movies that end up being adored by the readers of the NME and GQ magazine - just look at TRAINSPOTTING).
28 DAYS LATER tells a pretty damn formulaic tale of a lone man who wakes up in hospital to discover the London he left behind is a deserted ruin of overturned vehicles and blowing litter. Hiding though in the shadows are a bloodthirsty throng of mindless victims of a accidental viral outbreak. Our lone protagonist finds other survivors and together they attempt to find a safe haven from the contagious horde forever at their backs.
So far, so OMEGA MAN. After the predictable deaths along the way, the survivors travel to an apparently safe military compound, only to discover the soldiers there are as desperate as they are and have unpleasant motives of their own, leaving our hero to save his new friends from the dangers within and without.
A horror story is only as good as its monsters. The Infected Masses are single-minded beings, existing only to kill and run about howling. They appear not to eat, ignore injury, and enter a kind of torpor during daylight hours. Since these aren't cannibals or animated corpses like most monsters that fit this cinematic "zombie" prototype, the "ugh" factor comes from the fact they constantly vomit large quantities of infected blood, obviously inspired by real-life diseases like Ebola.
On the other hand you have the soldiers, who harbour a plan to collect women, reconstructing "humanity" and rebuilding their cabin-fever-shattered mindsets via rape, (all of which is approved of by their commander), leaving us with a tired question of who really is the monster - us civilised humans or the primal screaming horde outside (who are at the end of the day are just us anyway - the kill-or-be-killed instinct hiding under the veneer of "humanity" in every one of us) but by this point I didn't care.
The story is cliché from moment one, leaving the audience with nothing to cling to but the characters. No bad thing, but the script is dire. Most of the cast do as well as they can with what they have, which includes some serious talent like Eccleston and Murphy, but it's an uphill struggle. The camera-work and editing is frenetic and perfect for MTV viewers, people with ADHD and those who think this is a hallmark of modern cinema and not just irritating. The movie is hip for certain, but clothes do not make the man. Don't even get started on the holes in the plot... most of the time you can forgive such things in horror movies but here they're glaring and obvious.
28 DAYS LATER seems to be so much more to its fans, but to me it is no more than yet another sorry collection of horror clichés presented in a way that seems to be original until you realise you've seen every scene before in some other movie, most likely handled better.